21st century teacher reflection

Being an educator of the 21st century is a difficult challenge. Everyday, there is new information to be learned and processed. My fellow teachers and I will have to become comfortable with technology and its role in the classroom. Therefore, it stands to reason that we, as teachers, need to prepare our children and teach them how to use technology to deepen their knowledge and make them more prepared to face the word, using flexibility, creativity, and above all, patience to help our students learn and grow as people.

Technology is an amazing tool for students. By integrating technology into the classroom, my students will be able to research topics more in depth and will become actively engaged in school and in the classroom. Students can use technology at their own pace and can do really cool activities online such as the metamorphosis project, in which they do their own art project, exploring tools around them to create their own kind of original art. Students that struggle to read could use interactive reading sites to help them read books, such as at Scholastic. These sites are wonderful tools because they supply scaffolding for the students. Students can listen and then read or can first try reading before listening. Other sites, such as funbrain can help students with their math, making problem solving and equations into games.. This kind of hands-on interactive learning helps students become more independent and it fosters in them a love for learning.

However, in order for technology to be integrated into the schools, teachers must be prepared. I feel that I have a responsibility to become comfortable with technology so that we may use it in the classroom. This means that I will become a student as well, learning alongside my class as we explore the intricacies and advantages of using technology. However, it will not be an easy ride. Teachers have to put up with a great deal of stress. Teachers are always busy, trying to incorporate many different strategies in order to keep their students’ engrossed all the while being interrupted by announcements, field trips, and specials. Because of this, I feel that I need to deviate from the traditional teacher roles and become more flexible. I will try to make my classroom as hands on as possible and will encourage my students to think critically about the world around them. I feel that a more progressive style classroom is more effective, especially when integrating technology. By giving them a more progressive education, students will be able to use technology in order to do more in depth research. I also feel that teachers need to be flexible. I know that to be an effective teacher, I must learn how to be flexible, and how to adapt quickly. I also know that I will have to be creative in order to integrate technology and everything else that needs to be taught. However, by integrating technology and by using a progressive system, I can give my students a lot more responsibilities as well. They can learn to lead the class and become more active learners, using their own tools to discover and learn.

By giving them full reign on their education, I am giving them leadership skills that will serve them well as adults. By teaching them about technology, I am giving them the ability to succeed. I feel like the classroom needs to be a true place of learning, not only for the students, but also for the teacher. It will be a place of discovery from both spectrums, young and old, as they learn together, using the wisdom of the adults and the young eyes and fresh minds of the students to problem solve.